Networking with the Un-Networkable: a brief explanatory of how to dull the schmoozing pain

September 13, 2012

Ja, Ja, Ja dez is very interesting indeed. However, I do not require such English services as we have a full in-house English department of native speakers.

And just like that – I was up shit creek yet again. Except this time I knew ahead of time about the painful, small talk conversation gauntlet I would have to run. How to become a copy editor you might ask? How did I get myself into this predicament? As I previously wrote about – I took a gamble this summer by taking an “out-of-the-box” approach to get more clients for my copy-editing business by going to academic conferences throughout Europe. My first conference in Rotterdam braced me for what was to come – awkward conversations about what “field” they were in (Ah wow, I didn’t know there were methodological studies using penta-metrics in fields by examining fruit bat mating habits from the 17th-18th centuries – that is fascinating), to even more awkward conversations threads about the weather or the boxed lunch that was being served (wow, these carrots in Finland taste so much more pungent than in America).

Fortunately, unlike the previous conference, which only had one social mixer with booze, this one was put on by the Scandinavians, and when you mix ancestral alcoholic tendencies with free State sponsored adult beverages, everyone wins. Me alone networking at a party? I can produce a mild golf-clap worthy performance. Me tag-teaming an event with Jack Daniels by my side? I am invincible. I have the endurance of a thoroughbred. Not only do I remember how to become a copy editor, but I remember how to dazel clients with my English in such a way as to make them think they are a copy editor. Not only do my conversations skills increase ten-fold, but my ability to intoxicate entertain my victims potential clients is unrivaled. I am a Jedi at perching at the bar, making friends with the bartender and dolling out free State-sponsored drinks as if I brewed them myself in a login cabin. I found this to be quite beneficiary when bringing up how my English skills could be employed on their academic journal papers. They seemed to agree, and if not, they got another shot from the State welfare machine me. Soon, before they knew it, they all walked away from the interaction feeling a little tipsier, a little more optimistic about the future, and a little more weighed down from my business cards bursting out of their jacket pockets.